The Friday 5 #99
7 M & S wines at £10 or under, a wine glass bargain, my pick of the new Ottolenghi range and a wonderful food memoir
For those of you who think my job is a doozy I need to reveal that it’s not quite the glamorous gig it might appear. I’ve been to four wine tastings this week, two of which featured over 130 wines.
No, I don’t taste them all but even 80-90 is quite challenging and as I’ve mentioned before it’s not the best and certainly not the most enjoyable way to assess wine.
Still I’m not expecting much sympathy - there are harder ways to earn a living - and as I’m sure you’d like to know what I rated, I’ve picked seven of the best buys I found at M & S. Plus a couple of good sauvignons for those of you who are planning to come along to my online sauvignon tasting on Tuesday. (For which, I would gently remind you, you need to be a paid subscriber which you can do for as little as £5.)
I’ve also found some inexpensive wine glasses for those of you who aren’t a fan of stems or find they won’t fit in in the dishwasher.
I have - of course - also been eating though not cooking much which is where the new Ottolenghi products for Waitrose come into play. How good are they? Read on…
Finally, a reminder about the sheer deliciousness of clams which I had at one of my favourite restaurants The French House this week - along with turbot which made it a painfully expensive main course. (Have you noticed main courses creeping into the £40 price bracket now? While I can appreciate the cost of the ingredients involved surely it’s simply going to mean we punters stick to the starters instead. Or share a main?)
Anyway there are fortunately cheaper and equally delicious ways of enjoying clams - see below
Next Friday I’m going to be in Vienna for a rather spectacular wine event (any restaurant tips?) so there won’t be a Friday 5 but I’ll try and send a few bank holiday wine recs through once I’ve seen who has offers. And there will be a postcard from Vienna, of course …
7 wines at £10 or under I would buy from M & S …